“Elder Race” by Adrian Tchaikovsky

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a book review. As usual, life has been busy, so there has been less time to work on them. But I’d love for this to be the year in which I complete reviewing all the books I read in it. That has never happened for me before. There’s always a spillover into the new year because I procrastinate on chatting about what I read. I try to review everything I read in the order I read them. But that hasn’t been the case this year.

The order in which I review things this year has been as haphazard as my reading. The result is that I now have six books to review that range from completion in early April (about seven months ago!) to just a few weeks ago. That means I’m foggy on the details on some of the books I’ll try to wrap up in the coming weeks, but I’ll try my best, of course.

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Genre

Sci-Fi; Fantasy

Series

n/a

Pubbed

2021

My thoughts

This is the one I completed back in early April, about seven months ago! And although I haven’t read as many books this year as I’ve done in previous years, I’m finding it hard to recall some of the details of this story. All I remember now is that I enjoyed what I read, had a wonderful time with this book, and consider it one of the best books I’ve read this year.

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Comics Roundup #54: “Deadpool: World’s Greatest, Vol. 1”

I recently read a bunch of comics and managed to put a dent in my goal to read at least 20 comic books this year, so at the moment I’m pretty damn proud of myself. 😀

I’ve also gotten into reading comic books digitally, which I’m grudgingly loving because the illustrations show up a lot clearer onscreen, and I don’t have to worry about details getting lost as the page curves into the book’s spine. The colors also pop more when viewed on a device.

However, I do prefer to own physical copies of books, so the comics I tend to read digital versions of are ones I don’t own and probably wouldn’t buy physical copies of, like Deadpool: World’s Greatest, Vol. 1: Millionaire With a Mouth, which I recently read.

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Deadpool: World’s Greatest, Vol. 1: Millionaire With a Mouth by Gerry Duggan, illus. by Mike Hawthorne, inked by Terry Pallot with colors by Val Staples (issues 1-2) and Guru-eFX (issues 3-5)

Genre

Sci-fi – superhero

Series

Deadpool: World’s Greatest

Pubbed

2016

From Goodreads

He’s annoying. He’s dangerous. He smells terrible. But the public loves him. That’s right-the Merc with the Mouth may make money for missions of murky morality…but he’s become the most popular hero in the world for it. Eat that, Spidey! The world belongs to…Deadpool. The fan-favorite team of Gerry Duggan and Mike Hawthorne return to bring Deadpool into his most successful adventures yet!

Comics Roundup #38: Assassin Nation, Django/Zorro, Prodigy

I rediscovered my Comixology account a couple weeks ago and was so happy about it that I downloaded the app and binged on a couple comics because I received free access to them for about five days or so.

I read popular comics I’ve always heard about and whatever else caught my attention, which is why I tried these three. Assassin Nation has “assassin” in the title, so that immediately caught my interest. Django/Zorro has the names of two intriguing characters in its title, and Prodigy has a Black dude on the cover, so of course I wanted to read it.

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Assassin Nation, #1 by Kyle Starks, illus. by Erica Henderson

Genre:

Thriller, Humor

Series:

Assassin Nation, issue 1

Pubbed:

2019

Goodreads summary:

The World’s Former Greatest Hitman hires the 20 best assassins in the world to be his bodyguards. These mean-as-hell hired guns and murderers must work together to keep the new crime boss safe while attempting to solve the mystery of who’s trying to off him. (Goodreads)

My thoughts:

It was entertaining. I didn’t know what to expect, so I went in with an open mind. Basically a dude who was the world’s best hitman rounds up the 20 best assassins in the world for a soiree to ask them to become his bodyguards because someone’s trying to kill him.

“Vicious” by V.E. Schwab

This book had been sitting on my shelves for years before I finally read it for a bookclub I formed with some coworkers. Someone else in the club chose the book, and I’m glad she did because otherwise it’d still be sitting on my shelves unread, and I wouldn’t have known how great a story it is. It’s one of the best I’ve read so far this year.

Genre:

Sci-fi

Series:

Villains, book 1

Pubbed:

2013

Goodreads summary:

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

“The Invisible Man” by H.G. Wells

I decided to revisit The Invisible Man a few weeks ago when I saw it on a feature shelf at my library.

I’d first read it when I was in high school and was so hooked on the story back then that I completed the book in a day. I wanted to know if my experience with the story would be the same or if the intervening years had dried the story for me and made it a bore, so I gave it another read.

Genre:

Sci-fi; Classic

Pubbed:

1897

Goodreads summary:

This masterpiece of science fiction is the fascinating story of Griffin, a scientist who creates a serum to render himself invisible, and his descent into madness that follows. (Goodreads)

My thoughts: (spoilers)

In short, I enjoyed the story. Again I was hooked just as I was when I first read it. But unlike my high school years, I now have responsibilities that claim my time, so it took a few days to complete the story, which is quite short at under 200 pages.

’90s Cartoon Book Tag

I’m in the mood for a tag today, so I present — the ’90s Cartoon Book Tag! It was created by Ben Sanders, who is a booktuber.

Rugrats

I actually wasn’t a big fan of Rugrats.

Find a book that is a nostalgic read.

Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce

“Normal” by Warren Ellis

The cover made me to pick this up.

I’d seen it on a previous visit to the library. Thinking it to be a horror novel, I avoided it. On another visit, the cover again caught my interest and curious, I read the synopsis on the back. “Sci-fi,” I thought. “Pweh!” I don’t like sci-fi and sometimes the concepts discussed scare me more than the horror novels. Again, I didn’t bother to check out the book.

But the third time I saw it on the shelf, I was again curious, sci-fi or not, and decided to just read the first sentence:

“Hand over the entire internet now and nobody gets hurt,” she said, aiming the toothbrush at the nurse like an evil magic wand.

Since then I was hooked and hardly put the book down until I was done.